The CyanogenMod team has officially released some milestone builds for CM 10.1. Dubbed “M3″ builds, these should be a little more stable than the current batch of nightlies. As of right now, the Nexus devices, the US Galaxy S III, the international One X, and a few Galaxy Notes and Galaxy S IIs are the only devices receiving these builds today, but, like always, more devices are sure to follow in the next week or so. Be sure to keep an eye on the CM page for when your device gets added. Happy flashing!

If you’ve decided that you aren’t a fan of Google’s color scheming in the latest Play Store redesign, we might have the answer for you. A “blacked out” themed version of the Play Store has surfaced on RootzWiki, and it definitely has a stylish appeal to it, especially if you aren’t a fan of all the white that Google uses.

Installation is simple, but you’ll need to be rooted to be able to flash the file in a custom recovery. For those unfamiliar with the process, you’ll download the packaged zip file on your phone, then reboot to recovery, flash the zip, and reboot. If you’re a little more tech savvy, you can manually push the modded .apk to your device, but recovery flashing does the trick.

In addition to the Play Store, tons of other Google Apps have gotten the sleek, dark redesign, so if the idea sounds interesting to you, hit the link below to check out the other apps.

Dan Rosenberg’s bootloader unlocking tool for Motorola devices is a pretty fantastic hack. Unfortunately, it does a painful requirement that some Motorola devices can’t get; root access. Many Motorola devices upgraded to Android 4.1.2 simply can’t be rooted. Well, before today, anyway. Dan Rosenberg, once again, has released a little hack to get your Motorola device rooted and prepped for that unlocked bootloader. This method was designed with the Droid RAZR HD in mind, but it will work on many other Motorola devices running 4.1.2.

Like always, rooting your phone does come with upsides and downsides, so be sure to read up on it before you make any hasty decisions. When you’re ready, hit the break below to get the instructions. Read more

Sure Facebook Home is going to be one heck of a game-changer for Android devices, but not only do we still need to wait a while for it to come out— Facebook Home is only going to be available for a handful of devices, at least for the initial launch. Fortunately, some enterprising folks went ahead and brought the awesome launcher to the masses. Paul O’Brien of MoDaCo’s details that using any Android device with a maximum resolution of 1,200 x 768, users will have the ability to use a pre-release version of the ROM by installing 3 special files.

Of course using the special build of the app doesn’t come without a few catches. The first is that since this is a pre-release version of Facebook Home, meaning the ROM is not exactly stable, is missing a feature or two and is a little bit on the slower side. The second catch is users will need to ensure that Facebook is completely uninstalled from their device prior to installing the ROM since the leaked files are re-signed and can’t just be installed over the top of an existing installation. This means that those of you with a device that has Facebook pre-installed will probably need to have Root access and remove the Facebook from your phone just to be on the safe side.

Ok— so now that you’ve gotten the disclaimer, we’re sure that you’re itching to try it out for yourself, right? Head on down to the source link to grab the full deets and instructions for yourself.

Sure we’re all eagerly awaiting the arrival of the hottest smartphone of the year, but that hasn’t stopped the gang at XDA from bringing the world glorious root capabilities. That’s why the gang has gone ahead and showcased its ROM is packaged with ROOT&Busybox into an image flashable via Odin. As exciting as it is to see the Galaxy S 4 being on its way to truly realizing its full potential, the gang at XDA highlights that the root method is only for the octa-core Exynos 5 variant of the smartphone, meaning the rest of us who will be on the Snapdragon version will be out of luck… for now at least.

Noted Android developer Koushik Dutta has released ClockworkMod Superuser beta. And yes, this is the guy behind ROM Manager and Carbon Backup. CWM superuser is free but isn’t yet available at the Play Store. It can be downloaded here and flashed manually in recovery or via ROM Manager. Although there are a couple other Superuser options out there, this one is open source and has multiuser support. See the full list of features at the source below.

You may not be able to get your hands on a Sony Xperia Z quite yet as it is just starting to trickle out to some international markets, but when you do, instructions are already available for those who want to root their new device before doing anything else. Gaining root access has been accomplished by XDA forum member DoomLoRD using a modified root file he had for a Google Nexus 4. After some modifications, and with the assistance of some other developers, the new file for the Xperia Z is ready. If you hit the source link for access to the necessary files and instructions, you might note that DoomLoRD achieved this remotely as he does not yet have the device himself.

If you do get an Xperia Z and want to go down the root path, keep in mind you are taking some risks in unlocking the bootloader and flashing a new kernel on your device.

One of the main reasons people choose to go with Android is because of the customization of the OS. With features like custom app launchers and widgets, Android is widely regarded as the favorable OS for anyone looking to make their smartphone or tablet exactly the way they want to. Due to the open-source nature of Android, many users look to do what is known as “rooting”. “Rooting” is essentially getting to the bare system of the device and unlocking the potential of your smartphone or tablet by use of super-user permissions.

Depending on your phone, carrier and manufacturer, the process of rooting your phone could be either extremely easy or extremely tiresome. Luckily there are developers who’s mission is to create a seamless and user-friendly ways of rooting devices and bringing custom ROMs, or custom user interfaces to your device. Read more

The guys over at Mobile Tech Videos have a service that will grant you S-OFF status for the HTC Droid DNA. S-OFF is required to write to certain partitions on the device and achieve true-root privileges. The S-OFF granting service is similar to the process, called JTAG, they use to unbrick phones. It’s $45 bucks plus shipping and you’ll have to do without your phone for a few days. Check out the video below of the not-so-simple process.

Are you one of the few that were lucky enough to nab the elusive Nexus 4 by Google? If you do possess Android’s hard to attain device and are into modding/rooting, then finding the perfect ROM can be hard, and maybe even overwhelming at times. RasBean Jelly is a custom AOSP ROM made by the developer Rascarlo and has been around since the Galaxy Nexus days when it was called Rascream (back when Ice Cream Sandwich was the latest ROM). If you’re an avid ROM flasher, then you’re well aware that a handful of the ones you flash tend to have bugs and other problems that you’ll frequently encounter. While that’s expected, that’s one thing that I don’t particularly enjoy about flashing custom ROM’s.

With RasBean, I have never encountered a bug or any problems in any build that I’ve tried, even in my ICS Galaxy Nexus days. RasBean is an AOSP based ROM that’s dedicated to speed and overall stability. While Rascarlo does include several additional features to the ROM, he makes sure to clean the ROM of necessary codes and “bloat.” Thus, if you’re a huge CM or AOKP fan, then this ROM may not be for you as it doesn’t have the dozens upon dozens of added features that those two ROM’s tend to have. But if you’re looking for a super fast ROM with no bugs, then RBJ just might be for you! Hit the break to find out more.